cards

This one is especially addressed to Muslims, which means you first need to recognize yourself. Who are you? What religion do you belong to?

If you say, you are a Muslim then do you believe. Do you believe in Allah, in His messenger Hazrat Muhammad (P.B.U.H)? Do you stand by Allah’s teachings, His orders? Do you know about your boundaries? Do you know about Islam?

Being a Muslim, does not simply mean that you are born to a Muslim family and that’s it. Being a Muslim is so much more. Being a Muslim, is about changing yourself according to Allah’s will and not about changing Islam.

Today, I want to talk about festivals and events, especially The Valentine’s Day. I will request you to first read ‘till the end, give me a chance to state myself then you can share your opinions. Thank you.

In Islam, the festivals are clearly defined and well established. They are distinct, no additions or subtractions are to be acknowledged. They are an essential part of our worship and there is no room for personal opinions. They have been approved for us by Allah and His Messenger . And that should be enough for us.

Festivals are considered as the most distinctive things by which our religions are told apart, by which we are told apart. So, when you welcome a non-Islamic festival in your lives you are going against your own religion, most importantly you are going against Allah’s will. If you believe you are a Muslim, you don’t want that, you don’t want to anger Allah.

Now we come to the Valentine’s Day. Do you know it goes back to Roman times? It has no roots in Islamic times which means this event entirely belongs to the Christians and not to Muslims.

Here is a little piece of information from the History of Valentine’s Day.

The people who celebrate this day wrote: Every 14 February we celebrate Valentine’s Day by giving flowers, candy and cards to those we love. We do this in honor of Saint Valentine.

Do you know who this St. Valentine is?

According to the most common legend, St. Valentine was a priest who served during 3rd century in Rome. There was an Emperor at that time by the name of Claudius II, who decided that single men made better soldiers than those that were married. Therefore, he decided to outlaw marriage for young men, in order to build a stronger army. St. Valentine was against this declaration. He thought it was unfair and must be stopped, so, he chose to marry young couples secretly. When the Emperor found out about St. Valentine’s actions, he had him put to death.

From that day on-wards, the followers of St. Valentine celebrate this day to honor him.

Though to this day, it has become something else. This festival was of Christians and Jews, and they had a purpose in mind. Now everyone is adopting this, regardless of the religion, beliefs, or history. It has become a huge mess.

We, being Muslims, should register this that this is not our festival to celebrate. As I have already stated, our festivals tell us apart, so we should not be a part of any non-Islamic festival.

From the Sunnah:

The Hold Prophet said: “Whoever imitates a certain people becomes one of them.”

[Abu Dawood]

If the Christians have a festival and the Jews have a festival, which belongs exclusively to them, the Muslims get no part in it. Just as non-Muslims do not share our religion, our festivals or our beliefs.

Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and numerous other non-Islamic festivals have found a way in our lives and this mixing is destroying us, as well as, it is taking away our identity.

Do the non-Muslims celebrate our Eids as we do, with the same beliefs and rituals as we do? The answer is no. There are some lines, some boundaries, we are not supposed to cross. It is for our own good. Try to see that.

Now we come to the Questions and Queries that people raise.

People ask questions like:

We are only expressing love, what’s wrong with that? OR

What’s wrong with a husband or a wife to express their love to each other on this particular day?

The answers to both are stated here.

No one is depriving you of love, if that’s what you mean. But the kind of love that this day promotes is notthe kind of love one must seek. It is a mistake to confuse that this kind of love has real intentions behind it. The love referred to, on this day is romantic love, involving mistresses and lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends.

This kind of relationships are not allowed in our religion. We should remember our boundaries, our hayaa. If one does crosses this line, he/she is committing a sin, a forbidden sin.

The romantic love should only exist between married couples. And even for married couples, they don’t need this specific day to express their love. There are 365 days in a year. This particular day comes once in a year. You don’t have to wait for this day to express love to your partner.

So, considering all of this, how can we believe that Valentine’s Day is of any benefit to Muslims? The truth is that, it is a call for more broad-mindedness and mischievousness, and the forming of forbidden relationships. The husband who sincerely loves his wife does not need this holiday to remind her of his love. He should express his love for his wife at all times and on all occasions. And the same goes for the wives.

Give it a thought, research on it if you are not satisfied by my words. In the history, in Quran and Hadith you will see that this is not our path to follow.

Its been quite a time, since I uploaded anything about, in the crafting corner. So, here it is: not long after I decided to make card making official, I got my first orders! 2 orders! Yeah!!

One was for a little baby turning ‘2’. She also happens to be my niece, cousin’s angel :). The order was from her grandmother and she said something like acha sa koi ho. I was so nervous, I mean there were billions of ideas to work with but what if…. This what if kills us at so many places 😉

So anyway, I finally completed the card and handed it over to the ‘grandmother’. Everyone liked it. Thank You, God!Here is an image of it.

From outside it was like this but this is not all. It got a surprise inside.

Ta-da!!

A pop up of flowers bouquet. I followed a tutorial on youtube. It turned out, pretty close. 🙂

Next up, is the card of Congratulationson promotion.

It also got a surprise inside.

Same idea but it is for two different families, so I guess, it will be a surprise after all.

I have started with this new project, or whatever you call it. I decided to work on handmade cards and putting them out in the world to see their worth, or something. 😉 Its been a while since I started with them. The response is good, so far. In the beginning, it was pretty slow and I almost gave up but thanks God I did not. I guess I was a little too jumpy and insecure. 😉

I really cherish the time I spend doing stuff like these. Some people say one should do these things when they have time to waste. But ‘art’ is not a waste. Is it? I don’t think so.

Here is some of my work.

Christmas cards. I personally like the one on the left in double door style. Oh sorry, they are both in double door style :). I mean the one with the white background and with stars and decorations.

I fell in love with these two wedding cards :). They were also adored by other people. Especially the one with full dresses. I tried to capture them form all angle and still was not able to get the enough of them.

Last but not the least, we have some birthday cards.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

While working on them, I found a lot about myself in the process. One should involve in such activities, they wash away the dust of this crazy world form your soul and open a whole new land for you.